Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/418

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396
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FLINT 396 FLINT He removed to New York City, however, in 1859. He was professor of physiology in the medical department of the University of Buffalo while in that city, and in the New York Medical College in 1859 and 1860. In 1860 and 1861 he was professor of physi- ology in the New Orleans School of Medicine, and in 1861, at the age of twenty-five, on re- turning to New York, he became one of the founders of the Bellevue Hospital Medical College and professor of physiology there, re- maining at his post for nearly thirty-years. He was also professor of physiology in the Long Island College Hospital from 1865 to 1868, and in 1898 became professor of physiology in the newly organized Cornell University Medical College, and professor emeritus in 1906, when the Carnegie Foundation granted him a re- tiring allowance. Dr. Flint served as assistant surgeon L'. S. A. at the New York General Hospital dur- ing the Civil War, and was surgeon-general of the State of New York from 1874 to 1878. Through his interest in physiology he was led to study physiology and mental diseases from the physiological viewpoint. In 1878 he was appointed a member of the consulting board of the then New York Lunatic Asylum ; when this institution was taken over by the state in 1896 he was made president of the medical board, and continued as consultant until his death. He was president of the New York State Medical Association, 1895; member of the executive committee of the New York Prison Association, 1890; president of the Medical Association of the Greater City of New York, 1899; and was decorated with the order of Bolivar (third class) of Venezuela in 1891. He was a member of the following scientific organizations: the American Medical Association; the New York County Medical Association ; the American Academy of Medi- cine (honorary) ; Association of Military Sur- geons of the United States; American Asso- ciation for the Advancement of Science; the Academy of Science, and the American Medi- co-Psychological Association, of which he be- came a member in 1899. He was a prolific writer and was the author of the "Physiology,- of Man" in five volumes; a "Text-Book of Physiology" in one volume; Clinical Examination of Urine in Disease "Physiological Effects of Severe and Prolonged Muscular Exercise"; "Source of Muscular Power." Two volumes of his collected es- says and articles on physiology and medi- cine have been published. He also made many other contributions to medical literature. He married Elizabeth B. McMaster, at Ball- ston, N. Y., December 23, 1862, who survived him with four children, one of whom, Austin Flint Jr. was the sixth in a continuous line of physicians, leaders in the medical profession. From the time of Dr. Flint's appointment as a member of the consulting board of the New York City Lunatic Asylum 'luitil his death he took great interest in psychiati"y ; in 1887 he attended two courses of lectures by Dr. Carlos F. MacDonald on mental diseases given at the Bellevue Hospital Medical Col- lege. Dr. Flint became one of the noted ex- perts in mental disease in New York, being associated in most of the important medico- legal cases before the courts of that state. His testimony was unusually clear and his presence on the stand was commanding, and "to the last he remained a man of active mind, of varied interests, alert, incisive, captious" — he was in- deed a personality. Institutional Care of the Insane in the United States and Canada. Henry M. Hurd, 1917. William Mabon. Boston Med. and Surg. Jour., 1915, vol. clxxiii, 560-561. Flint, Joshua Barker (1801-1864). This surgeon was born at Cohasset, Massa- chusetts, on October 13, 1801, and went to Harvard College, graduating A. B. in 1820 and M. D. in 1825. He practised in Boston for twelve years, served in the legislature, and from 1832 to 1835 edited the Medical Maga- zine, there, in conjunction with A. L. Peirson, Elisha Bartlett and A. A. Gould (q. v. to all). At the instance of Dr. Charles Caldwell (q. v.) he was invited to Louisville in 1837, as teacher of surgery in the Louisville Medi- cal Institute, later known as the University of Louisville. At the close of his third term he retired but was reinstated in the same chair after the lapse of a few years. In the winter and spring of 1847 he ad- ministered ether for the first time in Ken- tucky and perhaps in the west. It was for an amputation of the lower limb, the ether being then called "Ictheon" and administered by the aid of a complicated apparatus. About this same time Samuel D. Gross adminis- tered chloroform for the first time in Kentucky. From 1852 to 1854 Flint was professor of surgery and dean of the Kentucky School of Medicine. His fine scholarship, literary and profes- sional, made itself evident to all appreciative observers. He was not ostentatious in this regard. His sound judgment as a practitioner of surgery and his rare dexterity and cool- ness as an operator were readily recognized. In the field of operative surgery he was dis- tinguished beyond all other men of his time